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Dessert

Pears in Syrup

Pears cooked in a boiled sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,079 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Pears in Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare and core the pears.

Make the syrup and cook

  1. In a pot, combine the sugar with enough water to form a syrup and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the pears to the syrup and boil until tender.

Jar

  1. Seal the pears in jars, ensuring there is plenty of syrup as the fruit will absorb it.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pears
Provide the fruit that softens and turns tender as it cooks in the syrup.
White sugar
Forms the syrup that sweetens the fruit and helps preserve its shape and texture.

The step that matters

Keep plenty of syrup in the jars. Pears absorb syrup as they sit, so too little liquid can leave the fruit dry and exposed. Covering the fruit fully with syrup keeps it moist and sweet.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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